Animal rights radical gets 12 years for arson

EUGENE, Ore. – A federal judge Thursday sentenced Animal Liberation Front arsonist Kevin Tubbs to prison for more than 12 years, rejecting arguments that he was a minor player just trying to save animals and protect the earth.

U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken declared that four of the nine fires Tubbs was involved in – a forest ranger station, a police substation, a dealership selling SUVs and a tree farm – were acts of terrorism intended to influence the conduct of the government or retaliate for government acts.

“Fear and intimidation can play no part in changing the hearts and minds of people in a democracy,” Aiken told Tubbs twice for emphasis before sentencing him to 12 years and seven months in federal prison.

Tubbs is the second of 10 members of The Family, a Eugene-based cell of the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front, to face sentencing in federal court after pleading guilty to conspiracy and arson charges connected to a string of 20 arsons in five states that did a total of $40 million in damage.

Stanislas Meyerhoff, 29, was sentenced to 13 years in prison on Wednesday. He was involved in fires at a Eugene police substation, a Eugene SUV dealer, an Oregon tree farm, federal wild horse corrals in Wyoming and California, and a Vail, Colo., ski resort. He also helped topple a high-voltage transmission line tower in Oregon.

After a member of the cell, Jacob Ferguson, agreed to turn informant and wear a hidden recording device, Meyerhoff and five others were arrested, starting in December 2005. Soon after his arrest, Meyerhoff turned informant as well, which Aiken said resulted in more arrests.

Defense attorney Terri Wood said Ferguson has a deal with the prosecution that involves one count of arson and no prison time.

Tubbs and his fiancée, Michelle Pace, made emotional pleas for mercy, but Aiken rejected them, saying Tubbs was trying to minimize his responsibility and could have been much more effective in helping save wild horses from slaughter by starting a fund to buy them and using them in programs with children.

Aiken said it was “profoundly and palpably sad” that she had eight more people to sentence who wasted their lives by choosing violence rather than “random acts of kindness” to raise public awareness about threats to animals and the environment.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kirk Engdahl said Tubbs first met his family of radical environmentalists bent on saving the Earth through arson in 1995 as they joined an encampment dedicated to stopping the U.S. Forest Service from logging trees burned by a fire.

Engdahl said Tubbs was not a leader of The Family, but regularly picked targets, recruited others and built incendiary devices. When it came time to set the fires, he usually left that to others, serving as a lookout or driver, Engdahl said.

Tubbs’ targets included a U.S. Forest Service ranger station, a horse slaughterhouse, corrals used in roundups of wild horses, lumber mill offices, an SUV dealership, a police substation, a tree farm and a government laboratory.